Celebrate the Holiday by Feasting Your Eyes on These

Of the major holidays, Thanksgiving--at least as far as Hollywood is concerned--often is treated like an abandoned child. While big brother Christmas has inspired dozens of movies, many of them classics, unassuming little Thanksgiving usually has been given a cold shoulder.

But let’s take a look at what is out there at the video store if you’re looking for more T’day entertainment than the turkey can provide.

First, the standard fare:

Spencer Tracy starred in “Plymouth Adventure” (1952), which should be recommendation enough. He plays the cynical captain of the Mayflower as it carries a load of 17th-Century dreamers to Plymouth Rock.

The movie is glossy, melodramatic and overly ripe with the kind of scenery-chewing action that often marks “historical drama.” But Tracy, as usual, has his moments, this time juxtaposing his character’s own doubts against the practical need to settle a new land. The film was remade into the lackluster “Mayflower: The Pilgrim’s Adventure” in 1979 with Anthony Hopkins and Trish Van Devere. Ignore its call.

The most interesting thing about “The Thanksgiving Promise” (1986) is that it brings together the entire Bridges clan: Lloyd, Jeff, Beau and even Dorothy Lloyd’s wife, Jeff and Beau’s mom) and Jordan (Beau’s son). That may sound like too many Bridges to cross (sorry), but the movie is above average, mingling holiday cheer with family sentiment.

Based on a novel by Blaine and Brenton Yorgason and directed by Beau Bridges, it centers on a young boy and the adorable pet goose he’s been fattening for the Thanksgiving meal. Don’t worry, anything macabre (“OK, son, make sure that hatchet is really sharp before taking your goose for a walk”) is overtaken by sweetness and light.

Cartoon, anyone? The recently released “Bugs Bunny’s Thanksgiving Diet” gives the long-eared wise guy a chance to do what he does best--crank up the mischief and take a swipe or two at one of our holiday institutions.

In this 24-minute number, Bugs runs a fat farm with its own rascally regimen for taking off weight. As some of Bugs’ usual cohorts (Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil) are put through their paces, there are--as usual--lots of energy for the kids and some kicky asides for their parents.

The list gets longer if you and your family don’t mind veering from the merely traditional to the more eccentric.

Eating--or, more correctly, feasting--may not be at the heart of Thanksgiving along with good cheer and family bonding, but it is at the holiday’s stomach, so why not try “Babette’s Feast” (1987), Gabriel Axel’s Danish import that went on to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film?

The film isn’t really about eating: Its subject is actually the life choices made by Babette (Stephane Audran) and her two elderly sisters (Birgitte Federspiel and Bodil Kjer). But Babette does cook, amazingly well, and the movie does build toward a sumptuous (and symbol-garnished) banquet.

The joys and terrors of eating come into focus in Henry Jaglom’s “Eating” (1990), which deals with food as an especially female obsession. As one of the 38 (!) actresses who appear in the movie says, “Twenty-five years ago the secret subject of women was sex; today, it’s food!”

Just about all the women are fixated on thinness and dieting, which conflicts with their basic love of eating, and there’s much talk about the dynamics of image and how distorted society’s values have become. Jaglom essentially is exploring neurotic behavior, but he does it so amusingly that you may enjoy a nervous chuckle (if not a sigh) when contemplating the extra pounds Thanksgiving has added to your frame.

For the perfect holiday closer, especially if your relatives see the Addams family as a good role model, try Paul Bartel’s “Eating Raoul” (1982). In this tidy, witty, off-color and slightly demented dark comedy, we meet the Blands (Bartel and Mary Woronov), a super-square couple alarmed by sex and encased in a dream of owning their own country restaurant.

They don’t have any money. But no problem. They decide to rob and murder their neighbors, basically a bunch of leering swinging singles. When sleazy acquaintance Raoul (Robert Beltran) tries to muscle in on their scheme, their thoughts turn to cannibalism. Say what? It’s all pretty funny, because the outrageousness plays so well against the Blands’ pretentiously refined veneer.

Still--robbery, murder and cannibalism, among friends and family on Thanksgiving Day? What better way to clear out all those guests who just don’t know when to leave?